Dreaming of You
by mormoriarty
Summary: There are some habits you never grow out of, and some memories you never forget. But how do you give up something you had for so long? How do you live alone, without your best friend by your side? How do you cope with the world telling you everything you thought was real was just a lie, just a deception?


**Chapter One**

_Out of Habit_

**The first month- **_July_

"_And how are you adjusting to living alone, John_?" Ella's warm voice asked him. But he didn't answer, his mind already spinning with recent memories of solitary nights and how _everything_ reminded him of Sherlock. It had been a month since The Fall, and The Fall was how John thought of it, important and marked with capital letters. It was important because it was Sherlock, because he was his best friend.

Ella thought that the grief and being no longer needed to run around with Sherlock had made his psychosomatic limp come back. Of course, there was no pain in his right leg, because it was all in his head. And his heart.

Out of habit, he still made two cups of coffee every morning and two cups of tea every evening. On quiet nights, meaning nights without the exhilarated chases, without criminals, without cases, they would sit on the couch and watch crap telly with those cups of tea. Without Sherlock here to keep him entertained with his deductions, crap telly seemed to get even worse, and John would just turn the volume down low and fall asleep on the sofa with his cup of tea. The other ones always grew cold on the coffee table, and John would let the bevy of mugs sit there until he ran out of cups to use. Sometimes he would read something funny off the internet and then turn back to tell Sherlock, who was bound to have a sarcastic comment for everything. But he wouldn't be there to quirk up his lips, to give John that bit of laughter.

He didn't ever feel hungry or tired- he'd apparently turned into Sherlock, who used to seem to be able to survive on nicotine patches and little to no sleep. Being a doctor, he knew it wasn't healthy to not eat, so he made himself eat some ginger digestives every morning, even though they tasted like sawdust and John didn't notice.

The flat felt cold without another person to bring colour to it, but John hadn't the heart to move out. Though everything made him want to cry and scream. And cry and scream he did.

**One month later- **_August_

Two months and it was still the same, still going to his psychiatrist and it was no help. Nothing worked because no one believed him about Sherlock. About how he wasn't a fraud. About how it was all real, not just a fairy tale.

Sometimes he tried to write down his thoughts, one of Ella's suggestions. He found himself writing a letter, to Sherlock, about how much he missed him. The paper was wet when he finished, but John wasn't surprised to find that his inked words had been blurred with teardrops.

Sherlock's leather armchair still sat across from John's upholstered one, and on some evenings, he lost himself staring at the empty chair, which still had an imprint of Sherlock's backside in it, as if Sherlock had just gone out and would be back soon to sit in it again. Sherlock's things sat in the flat, as if John was afraid to touch them, to move them, lest he disturb the last bits of Sherlock's presence in 221B. The door to Sherlock's bedroom was always closed, and remained so. John had no desire to remind himself, again and again, that his flatmate was gone. _Permanently gone_.

**Two months later- **_October_

Somehow without Sherlock here, John still managed to pay the rent. But with nothing else to occupy his time, he asked Sarah and then took his old fill-in position at the surgery. The work was always ordinary, nothing new or interesting. Mostly all stuff he had seen before- bad colds, fevers, allergies, nothing particularly severe. It was stress-free, and John hated it.

But it kept his mind off of Sherlock. Well, _mostly_ off Sherlock. This was what Ella had advised, that he do something to keep his thoughts elsewhere, so they weren't on Sherlock. But Sherlock had come to visit him here at the surgery a couple of times, and John could imagine him here, with his swirling coat whipping around the corners of his countertops, pacing and thinking. Or sitting in the patient's seat, tapping his foot impatiently, waiting for John to finish paperwork so they could visit St. Bart's to examine yet another dead body.

One rainy night, as he was tidying some things off of the mantle, he came across their Cluedo board, with the knife still stuck in it. John had clutched it to his chest, and cried and laughed simultaneously while the rain pounded endlessly against the windowpanes.

One time, he drank himself into a stupor, filling and refilling his glass with some bottle of wine he'd found hidden somewhere. It was horrible wine, but it had brought wonderful relief. And so he found himself on the floor, several hours later- his limbs achy and his head pounding from having passed out from all the alcohol. John threw the wineglass at the wall, and swore he would never do that again. He didn't want to turn out like Harry, trying to drink all her troubles away.

One day, while walking to pick up some milk, John had passed a tall, dark-haired man in a long coat sitting on a bench. He stopped. But the stranger was too tan, too muscular, too…_not Sherlock_. John had tightened his grip on his cane and clenched his teeth and walked away. The stranger hadn't noticed, and sat obliviously on the bench with a paper cup of coffee.

**Four months later- **_February_

John had finally gotten a bit of his appetite back, and had gone to dine at Angelo's. It probably hadn't been the best decision, since all John could think about was the first time he'd been here with Sherlock, and Angelo had assumed John was his date. Which wasn't altogether that bad, but this time, Angelo just smiled sadly and gave him a candle for the table anyway. John sat there for an hour picking at his fettuccine alfredo before he realized he wasn't hungry anymore. He paid the bill, the mostly uneaten pasta still on the table, and left, almost forgetting his cane again like the first time.

His sleep had been sort of sporadic, and he had occasional insomnia. He would sit and stare at the bullet-holed smiley face in the wall till the early hours of morning because he wasn't tired. Or he was, tired, that is, and just couldn't sleep. He couldn't sleep without horridly sad nightmares- nightmares of The Fall, of Sherlock's last call. Or maybe they were good dreams, since they were the only times he could see Sherlock, still alive in his subconscious mind.

Some dreams were so real; he had trouble discerning them from reality. They were mostly fragmented memories, slices of life made into a movie behind John's closed eyelids. Starring Sherlock, of course.

John is awake in the wee hours of morning- _2:35_, it says on his bedside clock. God knows why he's awake. He twists and turns, pulling the covers more tightly around himself. The room is stifling hot, though it's the middle of February. "John," he hears whispered softly. "John, did you miss me?"

The voice is recognizable, almost disconcertingly so, but he can't place it in this hazy state of mind. A tall man is crouched next to the wall, the window open behind him. He must have come through the window, John thinks, now alarmed. He tries to get out of bed, but his limbs feel like they're lined with lead. John makes a sound of protest as the man comes closer.

"Hush…It's okay, John. It's me," the man soothes; his voice low and calm next to John's ear. Streetlights from outside cast his silhouette on the wall, and his brunet curls look familiar. He lets out a quiet gasp- for this man, he is _Sherlock_.


End file.
